Popular Dundee pub boss Gordon Bruce, aged 72

A beloved pub boss has been hailed as a “perfect gentleman” following his death.

Gordon Bruce spent decades pulling pints in the Arctic Bar and several other public houses in Dundee, as well as heading up the city’s licensed trade association.

The grandad died last week after a long battle with alzheimer’s disease. He was 72.

Wife Marslie paid tribute to her husband. She said: “Everybody in Dundee knew Gordon. “Even when we would go to Majorca, Tenerife or Cyprus on holiday we would bump into people that he knew.

“I met him in 1969 and on our first date he asked me to marry him. Sure enough, six weeks later he got his suit from John Collier and we were married.”

Born in Letham, Gordon moved to Dundee in his teens and was educated at Grove Academy.

He and Marslie moved to the Douglas area where they raised son Raymond and daughter Kirstyn.

Gordon spent his entire career in the licensed trade, working his way up from lorry driver to head of the trade association.

He also had a stake in the Occidental Bar in Broughty Ferry and Thomsons Bar on Bell Street.

In the 1980s, Gordon found himself on TV screens as a guest on the BBC’s That’s Life – thanks to his talking poodle Theo.

Marslie said: “I had taught Theo to speak. He managed to say ‘Raymond’, ‘hello mum’ and ‘I want one’ while standing on his hind legs.”

Gordon raised thousands for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh after a family member was diagnosed with neuroblastoma.

A keen footballer, he was offered a contract at Rangers FC, but his mum refused to let him sign, instead telling him to get a “proper job”.

Gordon Bruce was well known for pulling pints in Dundee.